Next week is great for Disney Plus. On February 4, Disney releases its quarterly financial results, which should give us a significant first look at the number of subscribers to the streaming service since the announcement that 10 million people signed up in November. Then we'll have an idea of how it fares against competitors like Netflix. We also hope to get a more accurate idea of what the release schedule will look like for the rest of the year. Disney Plus got off to a very good start in 2020, bringing live-action remakes of The Lion King and Aladdin to life. In February 2020 on Disney Plus, Toy Story 4 will join it, leaving Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Frozen 2 as the big movies of 2019 waiting to land on the streaming service. It's likely to take until summer for original content on Disney Plus to peak: It was announced this week that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the first MCU show on Disney Plus, will launch in August. This will be followed by The Mandalorian season 2 and WandaVision, another MCU show, towards the end of the year. By 2021, people won't be able to stop talking about Disney Plus shows. But for now, we have a bit of expectation on our hands. While fans of Star Wars animation can look forward to a new season of The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian has offered a taste of the service's full potential: expensive live TV shows, strong enough to outshine the movies on which which are based
(Image credit: LucasFilm) It would be nice if Disney were more open to exploring adult content from their archives in the meantime, to help fill the void. It's hard to understand what Disney sees as too ``adult'' & # 39; & # 39; for service, but the Simpsons' presence suggests there's a bit of leeway. Similarly, we know that the classic Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle is slated for the service at some point, which would be a welcome addition.
These two shows are about families, but each has intergenerational appeal and plenty of adult jokes. So you have to wonder why more shows like this haven't made the trip to the streaming service.
If you look at Hulu, Disney's streaming service, there are a number of great shows that seem to fit the same template. King of the Hill, for example, was co-created by The Simpsons writer Greg Daniels, and while it's a more realistic show than The Simpsons, it's not. 39, is not really more adult. Twelve seasons would be a great addition to help us through the fallow months for new content.
Futurama, also from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, is a darker show in some respects, and it doesn't have the familiar focus of its sister show, but it would complement The Simpsons on Disney Plus pretty well.
Now Bob's Burgers animated sitcom would push it, but... Disney Plus has parental restrictions. Even if the service is designed to be family friendly, it should give them a bit more flexibility to go a bit above the PG rated stuff. This should be enough of an excuse to expand the range of what you can see out there.
These three shows have their share of more mature episodes and dark jokes, but are they really darker than Frank Grimes' death on The Simpsons? Probably not.
Capitalizing on some of these older shows could give Disney Plus a bit more cross-generational appeal while everyone waits for the right thing to do. The argument must be made that Hulu must remain as strong as Disney Plus, because the latter is expanding its catalog and its streaming rivals are launching competitive services. They are available together in one package, after all.
But right now, Hulu is a streaming service only in the United States. And Disney Plus will launch worldwide, including in parts of Europe in March. It would be nice if there was more to look forward to in this half of 2020 than Disney's own blockbusters, older animated kids' shows, and all the family-friendly content coming out of the joint Disney-Fox movie archives (romcom Splash! Coming in February). When you compare the best Disney Plus TV shows to Disney Plus movies, it is obvious that the former is weaker than the latter.
Finally, Disney should have plenty of original shows to entertain adults. (Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm) You could say that Disney Plus already fulfills its primary role: it's a living archive of Disney movies, with libraries of Marvel and Star Wars movies to watch too, even if licensing restrictions prevent the sale of these collections. be complete AND its price is not so high that people are likely to worry about the additional cost of having it every month. For many parents, the call will undoubtedly be made to their children to keep them busy for hours. This is worth €6.99 a month. And by the end of the year, the slow pace of big-budget originals won't be as important anymore. It looks like viewers will be getting a Marvel series every quarter of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which is going to be a big deal. We've seen what Disney Plus programming can look like with The Mandalorian, and it's extremely promising. But it would be nice to know more about what is and is not considered suitable for the service. As more and more countries start streaming Disney Plus, this will give us an idea of the shape of the service for years to come and how far its family-friendly image can be extended.